by Jianne Carlo
She closed her eyes and savored the feel of Jake’s warm hands lifting the soft cotton fabric of her tank top. He left soft moist kisses as he bared her skin and her toes curled into the soft carpet.
Through hooded eyes, she watched his pupils dilate as one fingertip traced the outline of her breast.
“Jesus, you’re perfect,” he said, his breath fanning her chest and pebbling her nipples into throbbing points.
His mouth found a peak, and the hard tugging of his tongue flamed away her thoughts. He shifted and positioned her prone on the sofa, undoing the button of her jeans, and the metal zipper separated under the swift action. He slipped his finger between her thighs, stroking her moist folds, while his lips trailed across her chest and latched onto an aching breast, covering the whole mound in an avaricious laving.
“Oh my,” she groaned.
“You screamed that on the raft,” he growled. “I’m going to make you scream it again tonight.”
“Oh yes,” she agreed as his thumb grazed a circle around her nubbin. “Oh my.”
“This is nuts.”
He stretched her out and grabbed the waistband of her jeans. She arched in helpful approval, and the pants came off in rapid time.
“Take off your top,” he ordered and stripped right there and then, his cock hard and jutting straight up, purpled at the head.
Too bemused to comply, she stared at him, licking her lips and leaning on her elbows, naked from the waist down, her turquoise T-shirt rolled up above her electrified nipples.
“Too late,” he muttered and lowered on top of her, settling that rigid prick at her center, and setting his mouth to her left breast.
He plunged inside her and sawed her nipple between his teeth. The simultaneous stimulation sent her into wrenching clenches. She exploded, and a vague awareness of his erotic approval, his low, rumbled comments ignited a raging inferno.
“Jesus, babe. We have to slow down.” He gripped her hips and nipped at her bottom lip. “Steady, Tee.”
Raising her arms over her head, he clamped one hand around both wrists and let his weight pin her wriggles to a standstill. Undeterred, she lifted her hips and moaned when his length rubbed too low. Managing to free one leg, she hooked it around his waist and sighed when her elevated position flattened her folds on his pelvis.
“Oh yes,” she whispered. “Oh my, oh my.”
Jake bit her shoulder, let go of her wrists, and ordered, “Both legs. Now.”
He grunted when Tee complied, and she slipped her arms around him, raking his back with her nails, instinctively scooping her pelvis, and the friction tripled in intensity, hurdling ingrained reserve, unleashing her wild, tempestuous passion. She captured his right nipple and explored, licking it, and smiled at his harsh gasp.
“Bite, babe, bite.” His groaned plea pooled wetness between her thighs, and she complied, grazing the taut point lightly, uncertain how much pressure to apply. His hot palm cradled her head, and he urged her closer. Mares nipped their stallions during the moment of penetration, and the image burned her pupils, insecurity vanished, and she sank her teeth down.
“Jesus, I’m done for.”
Taking possession of her mouth, he slowed the pace of his thrusts, and she wanted to scream in frustration, but his tongue tangled with hers, sliding in and out, matching the cadence of his plundering. She cupped his ass, relishing the feel of his hard roundness, insisting on more, faster, harder.
In a final concession, his pillaging reached deeper, tongue and cock penetrating inner recesses, finding hidden pleasure spots. Tee surged upwards, and his fierce plunge hit a sweet point that sent her over a cliff, sparking like a broken electrical wire, and she collapsed, curling her arms around him, scraping fingernails over tense muscles.
She felt rather than heard his muffled words as his mouth nuzzled the crook of her neck.
“Hmmm?” It was all she could manage.
“I said I’ll make up for this quickie next time.”
“This isn’t good?” Heavens, sex proved addictive, and her lips curved as she noted the promise of the next time.
“Hell, it was great. Just not long enough. I want to taste you, babe, lick you from head to toe. Have you wrap those long, sexy legs around my head.”
He rose on his forearms, and those dark eyes sparkled with devilish intent. Tee melted when he grinned, the cocky boyishness lighting his features, coating warmth across her chest.
Lines formed on his forehead, he sniffed and then asked, “Do I smell chocolate?”
Damn, damn, damn. She glanced over his bare shoulders and sure enough, miniature cupcakes filled every empty space on the sideboard. This would never work. She had to distract him until she’d cleaned up the evidence of her damned unreliable witchy powers.
Latching on to the first clear thought that hit her brain, she blurted, “Dee said I should ask about your sexual history. And what about the condom thing?”
That stoic expression she disliked curtained his features, and he slipped out of her, avoiding her gaze. When Jake bent to retrieve his clothes, Tee scanned the room, sent the cakes and the rose petals into purgatory, and shoved her T-shirt into place.
He handed her the discarded jeans, she slipped them on, and a sudden unease wrenched a distanced tension between them.
“That was completely irresponsible on my part.” He picked up the wine bottle and refilled their glasses. “I can get the morning-after pill couriered here tomorrow. It works within a three-day span.”
“Why do you sound angry?”
“I’m annoyed with myself, not with you, about the obvious repercussions.”
“A baby,” she said and wondered if her progeny would inherit her powers.
“I don’t want children,” he said in a clipped, terse tone. “A family is not part of my plan.”
“Bully for you,” Tee retorted. “Then you should have used a condom, and I’m not taking any morning-after pill.”
“I won’t marry you because of a child.”
Temper flared sweet and hot. She shot to her feet, hands balled.
“The last thing I want after Tony is to get married. To any man. And no one’s making any decisions for me, not anymore. And now, I think you can leave.”
Gladiators, Vikings & Cowboy Acrobatics
“So I was right before. I’m good enough to screw but not to marry?”
As soon as Jake barked out the question, he regretted it.
“You know, I always thought you a logical man, but over the last two days you’ve blown hot and cold like there’s no tomorrow. You just said you didn’t want to get married, and I agreed with you. What is your problem?”
Her harsh emphasis on the word is escalated a rising irritation. Frustration and discontent laced his veins, and he couldn’t pinpoint the source of a sense of betrayal. “I said I didn’t want a family.”
She plopped onto the couch and cupped her hands over her face.
“I don’t think this is going to work.”
Lamplight dusted the room with a golden hue and set Tee’s complexion glowing like Tinker Bell’s fairy dust. He shook his head and slumped onto the sofa so that their hips touched. “What?”
“Whatever this is between us,” she mumbled.
He snagged his arms under her knees, hauled her into his lap, and leaned his forehead against hers. Tipping her chin up, Jake commanded, “Look at me, Tee.”
A wary skittishness chased those honey-colored eyes. The urge to have them glisten with longing for him tornadoed his brain, and he fought for control. “I’ll use a condom from now on, and we’ll deal with any issues from the last two times if they arise. Can we agree on that?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t leave it alone, this thing between us. And I won’t settle for making love to you only two times. Do you want to be with me again?”
She looked away, and his lungs stopped functioning. A concrete drill rattled Jake’s chest, and the seconds lengthened into hell’s eternity.<
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“Yes.”
The barest of whispers, but it sheathed something bleak and despairing in him, renting the darkness away for a little longer. Flickering flames in the fireplace to their right warmed the surprising chill of the tropical evening air and cast her profile into soft shadows.
“But, not in the Caribbean, and my parents can’t know, um, about us.”
The telltale flick of her pink tongue contained his rising anger. Turning her chin with his forefinger so their gazes met, he asked, “Why?”
“Dad likes you, Jake, and if he knew, um, about the sex, he’d probably kill you. And as for Tricia, let’s just say I have enough problems with my mother. I don’t need to add to them.”
Her conditions jangled emotions long buried, and a craving to flaunt their relationship under Tricia’s snooty nose waged battle with her rational explanation. Even her hair smelled of roses. Jake buried his nose in her silky curls and inhaled, and the rubber band around his chest split apart.
“Meet me in London. I have to go anyway to deal with this property I’ve inherited.”
“I, um, Jake, weren’t you raised in an orphanage?” Her tawny skin colored a delectable hue, and she ducked her chin.
Embarrassed a tad, he gave her a succinct accounting of his recent discovery, and her reaction puzzled him. She beamed.
“I can’t wait to tell my mother. Oooh, this will kill her. I’m so happy for you.”
For the first time, she took the lead in their relationship, cradling his face in her warm palms and kissing him. A chaste, closed-lip brushing. Every humiliation about his origins flushed away with the sweet caress.
Stay with me, he thought, and pictured her in the new waterfront mansion he purchased a month ago. Vulnerability swamped him, and Jake buried the notion.
“Can you get away for two weeks?”
Her brown eyebrows lifted. “Two weeks?”
“You’re right, let’s make it three,” he amended, swiftly analyzing options to extend the time.
“I thought you’d, um . . .” She shook her head. “I expected maybe three days. I can’t do it. I mean, I’ll barely manage three days. Three weeks is impossible.”
Jerking off his lap, Tee stood, and the horrified expression dominating her elegant features ripped at his gut. The aroma of rich, dark chocolate fissured his seduction-bent thoughts and rattled his concentration. He frowned, shook his head, and re-focused.
“How about you staying here for a couple of days instead?”
“I can definitely do that, but if you think that’s going to satisfy either of us, you’re dead wrong. Why does that chocolate smell come and go?”
He didn’t know there were so many shades of pink, but her cheeks stained a deep rose, and her dark eyelashes did a sweet, rapid flutter. Pure feminine bewitchment, his lungs stuttered.
“Dee left a note saying dinner was in the oven, and the timer went off ages ago. It’s probably that. Why don’t you unpack and have a shower while I’ll get the food on the table?”
A shower. He went hard.
“Dinner can wait, babe. Let’s shower together.”
An anticipatory grin claimed his mouth as he stood, snagged her palm, and tugged her in the direction of the bedroom. The giant mahogany bed drew him like a magnet, and the tangy scent of salty ocean air seeped into the cottage through open French doors. He nuzzled the fascinating curve of her nape, and lavender and rose tickled his nose as Jake drew in a deep breath and grew drunk on her scent, and closed his eyes.
He nudged her against the frame of the bed. They fell into a spooning position on the soft mattress, and Jake wrapped her in his arms. Trailing burning lips across her collarbone to her jawline, he flicked his tongue up to her ear, and nibbled on the lobe. Her bottom arced into his pelvis.
His arousal thickened. Lust, passion, and desire conquered anything nearing lucidity. He nipped his way to her mouth and slanted his lips over hers. She opened for him. Jake sighed into her mouth. He speared his tongue inside and drank hungrily, tasting every luscious crevice, drowning in her sugary, hot flavor.
A balmy breeze wrapped around their bodies, enfolding them in a world of their own. She touched her tongue to his in a tentative exploration. It detonated his passion. Clothes flew left and right, both of them pulling and yanking in frenzied urgency, until they were skin to skin.
“You drive me crazy.” He bit her shoulder, rolled Tee onto her back, and covered her body with his. “I can’t wait.”
His hands kneaded and caressed, fingers exploring the underside of her breasts. He tugged at her nipples and rolled them between his fingers.
“Oh my,” she mewled.
He took her mouth in a deep, soul-destroying kiss, their tongues dueling in a scorching, feverish mating.
Hard, icy-cold, slippery objects pounded his naked back. Jake’s eyes flew open. Lightning crackled, and a white-hot bolt landed to his right. Flames erupted, whooshing across the dry grass. Still fused at the lips, he froze as Tee’s eyelids snapped upwards, the look of horror on her face mirrored in her dilated pupils.
She tore her mouth away from his and beat her fists against his bare chest.
“Damn, damn,” she wailed. “What have I done?”
“What?”
His dazed senses failed him.
“Oh no.” She clamped a hand over her mouth and pointed a finger over his left shoulder.
“What?” he repeated.
“G-g-gladiators,” she stammered, “hundreds of Roman gladiators.”
Jake’s head snapped around.
Pain pierced the vertebra at the base of his neck, slicing node by node, all the way down his spine.
Gladiators.
He blinked.
Half a mile away, six columns of men dressed in full gladiator regalia marched in precisely orchestrated patterns. Their stomping threw up a cloud of dust about three feet high. The spikes on their metal helmets glistened in the watery morning sunlight, forming a long flickering silver ribbon, which danced against the emerald leaves of a thick forest.
“Kiss me quickly,” Tee squawked. She tugged his head down. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
“What?” Jake pushed away from her and onto his elbows.
He swiveled automatically to the soldiers. They were still there. Now, mounted men with shields joined them, forming a rear flank. Four outriders trotted in their direction.
“Oh God, they’re heading straight for us.” Tee stuck her fingers in his hair and pulled him back down. She mimicked his actions of a few minutes earlier, slanting her lips over his, and slipped her tongue into his mouth.
Her sweetness dizzied him for a moment. He remembered the gladiators, tore his lips away, and rolled over. She held onto his waist and ended up on top of him, sliding down his wet, slippery skin. He couldn’t take his eyes off the fierce wild men galloping towards them, spears pointed directly at their bodies.
“What the—,” he muttered, and all of his thought processes stopped dead.
He looked down. Her mouth covered the head of his prick. The light, tentative sucking fried his brain, and his lungs burned.
“Jesus, Tee.”
She glided up and kissed him. Her hands tightened around his shaft as she slithered and strained to reach his lips. Her tongue waltzed a cautious journey of discovery in his mouth, an unbearable butterfly caress. Her grasp loosened, and her lithe fingertips fluttered over the top of his penis.
Jake caught her hand and held it there. He broke the kiss.
“Hold that thought. We have stuff to deal with.” He rolled over again, shifting onto his forearms as he did so.
“What?” She had a dreamy expression on her face.
The gladiators had vanished. No longer could he smell manure and the sky had morphed into a timbered roof. Jake shook his head.
Something hot connected with his back. He craned his neck and the blazing fire in the shale fireplace danced and spat embers up the flue. He felt like the little girl in Th
e Exorcist. His stomach rolled over. Jake squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them, one at a time. He twisted back to Tee, his eyes zipping around the room. They were in Harbor Lodge.
“Tee,” he roared. “What the hell just happened?”
Their mud-streaked, nude bodies presented a macabre contrast with the white sheepskin rug before the fireplace. Cakes of brown dirt fell onto the snowy fur, incongruous in such a tropical setting. Two brittle dried leaves fluttered to the decorative carpet.
“Tee.” His bellow echoed in the tiny living room. “Gladiators, gladiators, explain.”
His brain threatened spontaneous combustion—hail, spears, gladiators. He glared at her and shoved her off him.
Her face turned ashen. She grabbed a chenille throw from the chair and wrapped it around her body. “Here.” She held out a blue cotton blanket.
He heaved it back at her.
“I don’t want it. Where the hell did that come from? Who are you? What are you?”
Tee flinched, and the color drained from her face. She averted her eyes, stood up in one lissome, elegant motion, and faced the fireplace.
“I’m a witch. I understand if it repulses you. It did Tony.” Her voice sounded like a musical tinkle.
The whisper-soft words exploded in his brain. Jake saw red. For a brief moment, he wondered if she had a history of mental instability. He needed explanations. Now.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
He blinked. Tee was no longer on the rug, but huddled in the chair by the fireplace. She shrank against the upholstery, her back to him with the brown material wrapped around her body, and buried her face in the cloth-covered furniture.
“I was mad to even think I could do this.” Her muffled voice held an edge of desperation.
Dozens of tiny, rich brown cakes peppered the coffee table, more appearing as he stared in absolute disbelief. The tempting aroma of hot chocolate filled the room.
“Where are the little cakes coming from?” Each uttered word raised his fear level to new heights.